Saturday, November 1, 2008

Imperial Pumking, Southern Tier Brewing Company, Lakewood NY

The smell is spicy - a full aroma. There is brown sugar, caramel and I detect a very dominate oatmeal cookie smell with the slight cinnamon.

It is smooth and velvety - a full body. It is packed with flavor - thick caramel with pumpkin. The brown sugar is there along with that oatmeal cookie flavor. It has a general spice, but doesn't overwhelm the flavor, by any means.

It lingers nicely, leaving a spice flavor in the mouth.

This is a delicious way to end the pumpkin beer season! Southern Tier beers are available all over the East Coast and most recently, I discovered they are available at Bottleworks in Seattle, WA - for those in the area. Excellent beers! I have several more on reserve that we will be tasting soon!

From the bottle: 9%.

Malt: 2-row, caramel (remember from our beer lesson #1 that 2-row are popular in Europe & tend to be more starchy than the 6-row in the US)

Kettle Hops: Magnum

Aroma Hops: Sterling

with pureed pumpkin!

There is also a nice history of Puca (a mystical Celtic creature) which ties into the Halloween spirit - printed on the bottle.